So I see that TB exemptions are not allowed at all in Alaska yet I turned in a TB exemption letter last summer for PreK for my daughter. She'll be going to Barnette and I had planned to hand in the same letter but now see it's not acceptable for K....?

I had the vaccine exemption notarized today. Last year, I did a TB test exemption also (DD was in PreK). I was going to do one for K also but I see TB exemptions are not allowed. I'm wondering how to get around it.

There are many people in AK that will always test positive for tb, so they have to provide a lung scan instead.

Would that be a better choice for you OP if the exemption doesn't work out?

I know in Europe people get TB vaccines so they always test positive, some military personnel in the US (but sent abroad obviously) get them, and anyone that has had TB and gone through the treatments will also always test positive..

The standard recommended tuberculin test, is administered by injecting a 0.1 mL volume containing 5 TU (tuberculin units) PPD (purified protein deriviative) into the top layers of skin (intradermally, immediately under the surface of the skin) of the forearm.

TUBERSOL® is prepared by Aventis Pasteur Limited from a large Master Batch, Connaught Tuberculin (CT68) and is a cell-free purified protein fraction obtained from a human strain of Mycobacterium tuberculosis grown on a protein-free synthetic medium, and inactivated. TUBERSOL® is a sterile isotonic solution of Tuberculin in phosphate buffered saline containing Tween 80 (0.0005%) as a stabilizer. Phenol 0.28% is added as a preservative.

I realize that the tb TEST is required in AK, but for those people that have had TB treatments OR the vaccine (more than a billion people have had it), there is an alternative option which includes a lung scan- which I know some people prefer anyway. Perhaps I was unclear, I was offering the lung scan as an option from the test, not the vaccine- but the vaccine has caused the scan to become an option.

I realize that the tb TEST is required in AK, but for those people that have had TB treatments OR the vaccine (more than a billion people have had it), there is an alternative option which includes a lung scan- which I know some people prefer anyway. Perhaps I was unclear, I was offering the lung scan as an option from the test, not the vaccine- but the vaccine has caused the scan to become an option.

Thanks for the link though.

OH, I got ya! I wasn't replying to you. I was just saying that the TEST isn't a vaccine, but still has risks.

They offer the TB vax in AK?
Last time I talked to the public health nurse, she told me that they did not offer it because the effectivity of the TB vax is still in question.
That said, I volunteered for schools a few years back and was required to undergo a TB test. I tested positive and they recommended for me to go on antibiotics. I decided to get an x-ray and when it showed it was clear, I declined the antibiotics. I just presented that and was ok'd to volunteer for schools again.

So I assume this means that the poster found that in fact, there is not an exemption for the TB Test except for a lung x-ray. TB is still very prevelant in Alaska. I would rather get the test then expose them to all those x rays.

there is a blood test that is accurate (without the high rate of false positives and negatives of the skin test) it is called quanti ferron gold or something similar - it is done in anchorage but i forget where, and you really have to be insistent about asking for it, because even the facility that performs the test is not entirely aware that they do... (public health did not even know what it was...) if i had to get a tb test for my dd, i would only do the blood test. my dp had tb and was treated so this is something we recently investigated...